Joule Teams Up With Cloud DX to Bring Virtual Reality to Hospitals

Paul Fitzgerald

January 4, 2018

Virtual reality only seemed possible in science fiction movies, but the future has arrived. Tech is advancing and soon VR will be a reality in hospitals.

As medicine and health become one of the country’s most disrupted disciplines, Joule, the Canadian Medical Association’s (CMA’s) accelerator company, is responding to the challenges of capacity and access within healthcare through technological innovations that once seemed possible only in science fiction movies.

Joule has just announced a new partnership with Cloud DX, Inc, the award-winning Kitchener ON-based digital healthcare and artificial intelligence (AI) innovator, that is working to improve access and quality of patient and physician care through mixed reality technologies, available to hospitals and health clinics by 2019.

“In today’s exponential age of digital and mobile health, AI platforms and new technologies like the Cloud DX Vitaliti monitor are becoming indispensable tools for improving patient outcomes. There is a worldwide shift in medicine to include sensor technologies, as physicians and patients focus on preventative treatments and actionable information,” says Dr. Brian Brodie, Chair, Canadian Medical Association. “Technology is changing the way Canadians will receive healthcare tomorrow and the development of the Cloud DX Vitaliti platform is bringing us one step closer to experiencing a futuristic clinical user experience, today.”

Developed by Dr. Sonny Kohli and the Cloud DX team as Canada’s entry in the recently-completed Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE competition, the Vitaliti is a wearable medical device that continuously records a patient’s vital signs, collects data on symptoms, and uses artificial intelligence to autonomously diagnose 19 separate health conditions. At the Singularity University Canada Summit, Cloud DX is revealing a new mixed reality (virtual and augmented) application for clinical triage and decision support. By connecting Vitaliti to Microsoft’s HoloLens, doctors will be able to see a live 3D holographic display of the patient’s vital signs in the HoloLens headset.

“In the not-so-distant future, we believe that automated, hands-free, mixed reality displays like the Microsoft HoloLens will enable doctors to quickly triage patients and decide on treatment options faster,” says Dr. Sonny Kohli, Chief Medical Officer and Co-Founder, Cloud DX. “Vitaliti is meant to address capacity problems within our healthcare ecosystem by solving them through non-face-to-face innovation. This technology can also be used in remote and rural communities or from someone’s home when access to care is more challenging. In a country as vast as Canada, these resources can have a life-saving impact on Canadians.”

The Vitaliti vital sign monitor is in clinical testing prior to approval by Health Canada, and the first commercial version of the technology will become accessible in 2018. Meanwhile, Cloud DX provides patients with at-home Connected Health diagnostic kits and subscription-based services that are medical quality, Health Canada licensed and already in-market. Data from these kits can act as an early-warning system for patients going into crisis, assist in keeping immune-compromised patients out of hospitals, and help people manage chronic diseases like obesity, congestive heart failure, COPD and diabetes – all while logging their most up-to-date data in real-time. Preventing hospital admissions and moving care closer to home not only creates better outcomes for patients, it lowers costs, allowing the entire healthcare system to become more efficient.

Cloud DX Connected Health products, co-branded and co-marketed with Joule, a subsidiary of the CMA, are used by clinicians and patients in BC and Ontario in Canada, and across the USA. Since launching Cloud DX, the company’s technology has taken hundreds of thousands of readings from more than 20,000 patients.

“To be effective, AI diagnostic and other med-tech tools need to serve all parties, especially physicians and patients,” adds Joule CEO, Lindee David. “The collaboration between Joule and Cloud DX brings physician-led innovation to the forefront of delivery and care and this is important to improve quality of patient care in Canada.”